I came home the other day to a hot house because my wife had set the thermostat to 82. A few days later a laundry rack appeared in the backyard where my wife started sun-drying wet laundry before putting it in the dryer. These days she follows me around and turns off the light whenever I leave it on. She's obviously trying to cut our household expenses since she no longer works. I don't know how much money we save by doing these things or whether these extreme measures are really necessary. But I do appreciate what she's doing. My wife is a good household manager. She takes care of all of our finances, including our taxes. She buys everything for ...

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For years I've been listening to sermon tapes of a well-known pastor that his church mails to me for free. At first, I enjoyed them immensely. But after several years, I've started to get a little bored with them because I find that he covers the same topics over and over again. He also uses certain words repeatedly. Some of his favorites are "blessings", "success", "vision", and "challenge". I began to wonder whether I bore our church members because I also have favorite words that I use often, such as "happiness", "mission", "obedience", and "service". For this reason I prefer to preach book-by-book expository sermons over topical sermons. The ...

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The most insulting phrase to Americans is "You are a liar!" Accusing someone of this could lead to a fight. The reason why Americans are sensitive to being called liars may come from the Christian culture they are surrounded by. Christ called himself the truth: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)." He called Satan the father of lies": "He [the devil] is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44)." Avoiding lies and telling the truth is important in Christian culture. Asians in general are not particularly shy about telling lies. Certain lies are even recommended. For example, it is ...

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The last 3 weeks of travel in the US and Korea have encouraged me greatly, giving me confidence that the house church movement will stick. To be honest, I had been discouraged because so many pastors had experienced misunderstandings and criticism as they attempted to convert their churches to house churches. Some left their churches as a result. Some even lost their health due to too much stress. Some pastors tried to minimize conflict by implementing modified house churches with the result that they were not house "churches" any more, but small groups. Such things discouraged me and made me wonder whether I was lying when I claimed that "house ...

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If you plan to live in this country permanently, you must learn to speak English well. A study showed that people who speak fluent English earn an average of 30% more than those who don't. When you have a firm command of English, your chances of finding a good job improve dramatically. The likelihood of a promotion at work also improves greatly. If you are looking for business opportunities, the choices available to you increase. My English is not perfect, but I have made constant efforts to improve it and am able to preach in comprehensible English. When I was in high-school, I always carried English vocabulary memory cards and memorized them ...

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House churches are being established all over the North America. Although there are house churches in large cities such as New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, none of them are exemplary ones I can wholeheartedly recommend. House Church Ministries, the organization formed to help traditional churches convert to house churches, has decided to select a church in each large city and be more aggressive in helping them become model churches. Surprisingly, at the last conference at Jacksonville, good candidates were found for each city. I think it was God's providence, not chance, that I met pastors of candidate churches there. One example of God's provid...

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Some of our newer church members have joked about my singing. After his baptism, one member gave his testimony and said, "Before I started coming to this church, I had heard some of Pastor Chai's sermon tapes. I thought his sermons were pretty good. But his singing voice was terrible." On another occasion, a new female member said, "I like Pastor Chai because he is tone deaf, just like me." I admit that my voice quality isn't great. The church sound technicians have mentioned that my voice is... "unique", so it is hard to adjust the sound system to get good quality sound. I'm not a bass or a tenor. But my voice doesn't have the qualities of a ...

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